‘I Too’ | Langston Hughes

 

Having a ‘seat at the table’ insinuates that you’re deserving of respect and trusted to be apart of important discussion. Having a ‘family dinner’ denotes a gathering where you eat good food with people you love, while celebrating nothing in particular except your togetherness. Langston Hughes uses both of these concepts metaphorically in his poem, ‘I, Too’, which centers around the exclusion of Black Americans from American society. The poem starts off by Hughes declaring that he ‘sings America’. I believe that this is a nod to choirs, and how they are sung with the voices of groups of people rather than singularly. Hughes is stating that he, too, is a part of the American nation. Afterwards, stating that he is the ‘darker brother’ asserts that he is still part of the same family as white people in America. The third line is where the metaphors come in— ‘being sent to eat in the kitchen means that black Americans are hidden from the ‘company’ (the world stage, other nations) and not seen as part of the American nation, but rather someone who is not supposed to be there. However, Hughes also comments that he is laughing, indicating that he is not bothered by this treatment, and he is ‘eating well’ and ‘getting strong’ so he will one day, or ‘tomorrow’ as he says, be able to take action and not be controlled by the nay sayers, or the white-dominated system.